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VerifiedCustomer support
🛟

Shopify customer support triage workflow

Classify incoming customer emails with AI and route urgent issues to the right person fast.

Difficulty
Intermediate
Time saved
5-8 hours per week
Tools
5 apps
Best on
Make.com

This is a planning recipe. Check platform-specific steps before going live.

Who this workflow is for

E-commerce store owner — especially Shopify store.

What this workflow automates

Cut response time on Shopify support by letting AI tag each email and route urgent ones to Slack.

Tools required

ShopifyGmailOpenAISlackHelpscout/Gorgias

Supported platforms

Make.comn8nZapier

Visual workflow

⚡Trigger
New support email
Gmail
✅Action
Look up customer order
Shopify
🤖AI Step
Classify the request
OpenAI
🔀Decision
Route by category
Router
🔔Action
Alert team for urgent issues
Slack
🙋Decision
Human reviews suggested reply
🏁Output
Triaged and routed

Step-by-step setup

  1. 1
    New support email · Gmail

    Watches your support inbox for new messages.

    • • Connect Gmail
    • • Filter to support label or address
    • • Test with one real email
  2. 2
    Look up customer order · Shopify

    Find the customer's most recent order using the sender email.

    • • Search orders by email
    • • Pull last order id, status, fulfillment
  3. 3
    Classify the request · OpenAI

    Use AI to classify intent and urgency.

    • • Use gpt-4o-mini or similar
    • • Pass the email body and order JSON
    • • Parse the JSON response
  4. 4
    Route by category · Router

    Send urgent issues to Slack, refunds to the refund queue, others to a normal label.

    • • Add router branches per category
    • • Add an extra branch for urgency = high
  5. 5
    Alert team for urgent issues · Slack

    Post a Slack message in #support-urgent with the AI summary and a link to the ticket.

    • • Format a clean Slack message
    • • Mention the on-duty teammate
  6. 6
    Human reviews suggested reply

    Suggested reply is a draft, not auto-sent. A human reviews and clicks send.

    • • Save draft in Gmail or helpdesk
    • • Notify the support agent
  7. 7
    Triaged and routed

    Every support email is tagged, routed, and ready for a human reply.

Want this adapted to your business?

Copy this recipe to your dashboard and tweak it with the AI assistant.

AI prompts

Classify the request
You are a Shopify support triage assistant. Read the customer email and the recent order context. Return strict JSON: {"category": one of ["refund","shipping","product","account","other"], "urgency": one of ["low","normal","high"], "summary": one short sentence, "suggested_reply": draft 2-3 sentences in a friendly tone}. Email: {{email_body}}. Recent order: {{order_json}}.

Human approval recommended

  • Always have a human send the final reply, not the AI.
  • Review classifications weekly and tune the prompt.

Testing checklist

  • Send 5 test emails covering refund, shipping, product, urgent and other.
  • Confirm the AI returns valid JSON for each.
  • Confirm urgent ones land in Slack with the right info.
  • Confirm draft replies appear in the helpdesk for human review.

Error handling

  • If OpenAI fails or returns invalid JSON, route the email to a 'manual review' label.
  • If Shopify lookup fails, still classify the email and skip the order context.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Auto-sending AI replies without human review.
  • Not handling cases where the customer has no Shopify order.
  • Forgetting to limit the prompt to a single language.

Frequently asked questions

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